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Mic Placement for Upcoming Church Service
Members:
I need your help with an audio issue that’s going to come up for me.
In the near future, my parish will be celebrating their 90th Anniversary this year and I have been asked to videotape the service. I did a similar thing for them about 15 years ago and of course both my video and available audio equipment have gone through some major upgrade during that time
Her lies my problem. I will be positioned in the church in the choir loft. Video is ok from the view but my concern is obviously the audio. Last time I winged it from there and sound was not all that good. I had an opportunity to preview their new audio system today and they appear to have a recent audio-technica rack mount system in which the mics and lavaliers are feed in with audio-technica plug in receivers which go into the rack system. There should be output XLR’s on the system and in other events at other locations I have plugged my wireless mic transmitter into the output of the sound system and have gotten decent audio. Their system is in a closet and is mounted 8 feet in the air and the back of the system is not readily available so it looks like this possibility is out. The priest already had one wireless lav on him from this system so I can really ask him to wear another unit. I have a Sony UPW system.
Iv been told that some wedding videographers hoist a stand and put a wireless dynamic mic in front of one of the speakers. I have access to several mics including a wireless ADC cardiod, a sennheiser MK416, and an Audix HC-1. Is there some placement or combination of any of these mics that might work( I ave multiple transmitters and receivers or do I try and pick up from the speakers if all else fails. Are there problems with doing this?
Please Help
Fred Bruder -
1 Reply
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What does “not readily available” mean? Does that mean that for ordinary week-to-week operation, they just let it run unattended? It would seem to me that the 90th anniversary is an extraordinary event that should be an exception to the “ordinary” rule.
The three main things to consider with your scheme are:
1) Getting the microphone close enough to the speaker so that you essentially eliminate the ambient reverberation.
2) Keeping the levels “safe” because the sound level coming out of a speaker is typically much louder than what you encounter in “normal” microphone use.
3) Coordinating wireless frequencies. If they already have several wireless mics, it could be tricky adding yet another one while avoiding interference.I would certainly want to experiment with all three factors BEFORE the event. Take any opportunity to do a “dry-run” or use a real event as a “rehearsal” for the documentation of the 90th anniversary.
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